Monday, May 24, 2004

Ninomaru Garden


Inside the castle just behind Ninomaru Palace is found Ninomaru Garden. It is a traditional Japanese garden, designed around a large central pond by a landscape architect named Kobori Enshu (1579-1647). There are three islands, the Island of Eternal Happiness, Turtle Island and Crane Island. The rocks are all placed with care, (it is an artform to do that correctly). The garden really is beautiful to take in. The trees and foliage all came later. Initially the water and rocks were what made the garden.

2 comments:

Hannah Strauss said...

Wow! I never knew you had a blog!
Summer is doing a project on Japan right now for history. How many castles and things are left in Japan? It must be beautiful!

Will Dykstra said...

I only started blogging very recently. I thought it would be a good way to keep in touch with family and freinds, so they can see what I'm up to on the other side of the world. There are precious few castles left. Most have burned down, either accidentally or on purpose. But many of the major ones have been reconstructed but the grounds, the walls and the moats all tend to be still intact at the major castles. Seeing those gives one a real sense of history, it is almost tangible. There are thousands upon thousands of buddhist temples and shinto shrines however, and many have had monks and preists to continually look after them so these are in very good condition.